The Internet can be browsed by small Internet devices such as handheld computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones. These small form factor devices have been used to leverage the capabilities of the Internet and provide users ubiquitous access to information. Despite the proliferation of these devices, their usage for accessing today's Internet is still largely constrained by their small form factors, particularly their small screen size and their limited input capabilities. Most of today's web content has been designed with desktop computers in mind. Web content is often contained in large web pages which do not fit into the small screens of these small form factor devices. The web browsing in such devices is like seeing a mountain in a distance from a telescope, where the user is required to manually scroll the window to find and position the view correctly for reading information. This tedious and time-consuming browsing procedure has largely limited the usefulness of small form factor devices. Thus, browsing a typical web page with these devices can be an unpleasant experience.
To improve the browsing experience with a small form factor device, a web page can be adapted by techniques that modify the web content to meet both the client and the network capabilities. For instance, web objects on a web page can be distilled to decrease the network and client consumption, typically by discarding format information which tends to detract from the designed aesthetics of the web page. A large web page can also be re-authored into its defined sections and section headers, but there are few such specifications in typical web pages.
It is desirable to adapt a large web page for a small form factor device such that the adaptation is fully automatic, the whole web page is taken into consideration, and the resultant adapted page will be useable for most purposes. Additionally, it is desirable that the adaptation will leverage the web page authors' designing habits, preserve the visual impression of the original web page, and provide an effective way to express and realize presentation design.
Accordingly, this invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved web page adaptation and re-authoring for small form factor devices.